NOTE: DEDICATED TO REFERENCING THE PECCADILLOES AS WELL AS THE BENEFITS VIS-A-VIS THE ENTERPRISES OF PEOPLE, INSTITUTIONS, THE MEDIA, RELIGIONISTS, AND GOVERNMENT, RECOGNIZING THAT MY FEET, TOO, ARE MADE OF CLAY AND PREPARED FOR THE ACCUSATION THAT MY HEAD IS FILLED WITH IT, BUT REVELING IN THE FACT THAT IN THE U.S. FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS GUARANTEED EVEN TO THE “LEAST OF THESE,” MEANING ME. Check out new collection: "AVENGED & Other Poems."

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Pernicious Professorial Pontificating

University of Kentucky professor emeritus John Stempel in an op-ed in the Lexington Herald-Leader of 20 March vented his spleen on the 47 senators who sent the letter to Iranian Ayatollah Khameini to the effect that any deal promulgated by the Obama administration could be nullified with a stroke of the pen after the next election, explaining that under the U.S. Constitution presidents may not make deals, secret or otherwise, on their own, even though Obama has assumed that monarchical position domestically with respect to a number of things such as constantly changing—violating—Obamacare on the basis of politics alone.

Stempel said, “This unprecedented break with prudent practice has created a furor that places the U.S. government in a difficult position... .” UNPRECEDENTED? Either Stempel is uninformed or he's just pushing the usual democrat boilerplate, probably the latter. Coincidentally, in a recent issue of the Weekly Standard, Stephen Hayes pointed out a number of examples that give the lie to Stempel's assertion. One of the most notable involved then-senators Kerry and Harkin and a group of House democrats led by majority leader Jim Wright (later the speaker who was forced to resign account numerous personal perfidies) who wrote—yep, a letter—to Nicaraguan communist dictator Daniel Ortega in April 1985 to at least feign undercutting President Reagan. Remember Iran-Contra?

This is what Wright and his House conspirators wrote: “We regret the fact that better relations do not exist between the United States and your country. We have been, and remain, opposed to U.S. support for military action directed against the people or government of Nicaragua. We want to commend you and your government for taking steps to open up the political process in your country.” Did/does anyone believe Reagan ever had any intention of invading Nicaragua? I'm still laughing. The congressmen perpetrated a publicity stunt in 1985, while the 47 senators meant business in their letter to the world's head-butcher.

As a follow-up on Wright's letter, Kerry and Harkin traveled to Nicaragua for a tete-a-tete with Ortega, Kerry identifying themselves as Vietnam vets “alarmed that the Reagan administration is repeating the mistakes we made in Vietnam.” He didn't mention that democrat President Johnson was the perpetrator of the alleged Vietnam mistakes or that he (Kerry) while still a Naval officer traveled to Paris around 1970 to “parley” with both North and South Vietnamese pooh-bahs in behalf of peace, trying to undercut President Nixon. The Vietnamese historians are probably still laughing about that.

This is what Kerry said to a Senate committee in 1971: “So what I am saying is that yes, there will be some recrimination but far, far less than the 200,000 a year who are murdered [in Vietnam] by the United States of America …”. Kerry’s comrades/nation had murdered [his word] 1.6 million Vietnamese 1964-71 (or almost 4 percent of the population for 1970), mostly civilians – women, children, and old men. He’s never offered a scintilla of proof for that wacky accusation so, naturally, he has the prevarication bona fides to be secretary of state for Obama. Kerry also said this about American GIs: “They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads.” In a Meet the Press interview, he said his language was sometimes “excessive.” EXCESSIVE! Egad!

Hayes noted that in 2007 House Speaker Pelosi went to Syria for a tete-a-tete with dictator Bashar Assad at the same time Bush 43 was seeking to isolate Assad account his support for Iraqis who were killing American GIs. The administration had asked her to forgo the trip but she went and seemed to be quite taken with Assad, announcing later that he was eager to be a constructive player and wanted peace with Israel. She was trying to undercut Bush and one wonders if Stempel thinks what she did was UNPRECEDENTED.

Even curiouser is the Obama-Kerry effort concerning Iran currently. Obama said this in his Iranian New Year speech: “Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khameini has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons [ending it], and President Rouhani has said that Iran would never develop a nuclear weapon.” At the same time, State Secretary Kerry is making some sort of deal with Iranian representatives that will stop them from doing what Obama said the ayatollah said they weren't doing, in the first place. Go figure. Someone's either lying or totally ignorant. Would that be “UNPRECEDENTED?” Stempel knows.

About Me

I'm just an old guy who's been watching the scene for quite a long while, having come along just in time for the Great Depression. Those who are unfamiliar with that term are welcome to look it up. Though not scholarly by nature, I still managed to finish college (though not in four years or even five) and have been fortunate in getting to engage in a diversity of occupations - construction/farm laborer, U.S. Navy, newspaper sportswriter and columnist, radio disk-jockey and sportscaster, schoolteacher, full-time "church worker," railroader - and so I've had the opportunity to see things from both the white- and blue-collar perspectives, as well as those of the sacred and secular. Reading, writing, and music are my passions. The most intensive of my passions, however, is reserved for the writing of hymns.